Former magistrate in baby Messiah renaming case is censured

Mar. 4, 2014

Messiah DeShawn McCullough at 7 months / WBIR / File / AP

Written by

Jamie Satterfield

Knoxville News Sentinel

DANDRIDGE, TENN. — A disciplinary panel slapped a former Cocke County magistrate with a public censure Monday for ordering a name change for baby Messiah and defending her decision in a television interview.

A six-member panel of the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct deemed former child support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew guilty of violating five canons of judicial conduct.

Because Ballew already had been booted from her judicial post earlier this year, the panel’s only available punishments were either a reprimand or a censure, the harsher of the two. The panel opted for the censure.

Ballew in August ordered the first name of a baby changed from Messiah to Martin over the objections of parents Jalessa Martin and Jawaan McCullough. The parents were in Ballew’s court to establish the paternity of McCullough and change the baby’s surname from Martin to McCullough.